“Oh say! I have, though,” Brack put in hastily, conscious that his perfunctory interest in the sale of an historic herd was bound to go against him. “Guess I was too taken up to remember. I’d other business shouting, but I just blew over for a spell--thought it was up to me to give ’em a look-in.” As for the stock, it had been very much over-rated, he considered. All the best stuff went over the pond; everybody knew that, and he happened to be able to confirm it. Lup would find it so for himself when he got across. Yes, sir, _he_ had been at the sale, right enough! That was the best of a car; you could whiz about all over the place, and see a chunk of everything that was going. “You stopped just on half an hour,” Lup put in, fixing him steadily across the table. “I saw when you come--you were having a bit of a turn-up with the Duke’s shover; and I saw you quit--at the tail of a cart to the first motor-shop. And the biggest stock wasn’t in the ring till you’d been gone more than a while. It was a rare good sale. There’s no finer beasts in the world.” Brack felt his halo dwindling. “Engine-trouble--fixed in five minutes!” he answered casually. “No use my stopping, anyway--prices ran too all-creation big. You feel mighty thrilled, of course, watching good stock put to the hammer, even when you’ve got to grit your teeth on your tongue to keep it mum, but I d another trail to follow. I don’t mind laying that half the farmers there went just for the fun of the circus--they weren’t out to buy. You and your father, I take it, weren’t on to anything, now that Ninekyrkes is changing hands, and you’re for out West?”